Go 2 Guy: Willingham buys chateau on Plateau

Updated 10:00 pm, Monday, April 25, 2005

UW football fans need to worry about their team but not their coach anymore. Tyrone Willingham is still getting settled into a land-locked home and won't be able to give recruits improper boat rides.

Nor will he be enticed by new neighbors to risk it all on a high-stakes college basketball pool.

In an amazing development, the Go 2 Guy has learned that a sports figure with scads of cash has not moved into Medina for a change. The new UW coach bought a $1.5 million home in Sammamish, on the third green of the Plateau Club.

The 5,000-square-foot William Buchan home has five bedrooms, 4 1/4 baths and double French doors leading into a cherrywood- paneled den with custom bookcases.

It is believed in this den Willingham devised part of the high-powered offensive game plan that was unveiled at Saturday's spring game, officially launching the "Return of the Dawgs" campaign.

(By the way, SOS apparently stands for two things at Washington, one printable, one not).

And, according to the listing, the home is in a flawless setting featuring year-round native growth on a nearly three-quarter acre lot with a professionally landscaped yard.

(Meanwhile, I'm in a flawed setting with an unprofessionally landscaped yard featuring dandelions, weeds and molehills.)

UNFRIENDLY FEEDBACK: Regarding last Thursday's column poking fun at the UW ad campaign, the best of the lot came from Jon Price, suggesting an ad campaign for the Cougs with Grandpa Doba sitting on the porch in an old rocking chair telling his grandkids about WSU's glory:

"We went to the Rose Bowl in 1998 and got beat by Michigan, ohhhhh what a terrible call to end that game," Grandpa Doba says. "But children remember this: a Rose Bowl in Pullman gets you a banquet at the Spokane Déjà Vu, and Uncle Mike buys the Texas couch dances."

Then this from Jason Gaylord, saying the Go 2 Guy is an absolute idiot and should be fired: "I can understand that you're a Coug fan -- my fiancée graduated from WSU and loved her time there. You no doubt loved your time at WSU and talk about that hellhole like it's an oasis, and seem to harbor delusional thoughts that your program has any real tradition or dedicated fan support."

And speaking of Uncle Mike, after UTEP hired him, there was a 47 percent increase in season-ticket sales and 106 percent increase in attendance, according to the El Paso Times. Football revenues went up $1.3 million last year.

THREE DOTS: Want to feel as old as I did yesterday? The mother of Seahawks' first-round draft choice Chris Spencer is 37. ... Lorenzo Romar faced more pertinent questions regarding Brandon Roy's future yesterday, but I threw him a changeup, wondering how he felt about Ron Crockett naming a racehorse after him. The Emerald Downs owner and big UW booster has a 2-year-old Kentucky bred named Romar. Said the coach: "Somebody told me that, and I thought they were joking. That's a first." Romar said he will never bet on Romar, who is expected to run brilliantly until he enters the 2006 Kentucky Derby and loses, of course, in Louisville.

FINALLY: Taking a shot at Saturday's column on the Go 2 Twins, Garth Stewart wrote: "Consigning your twins to WSU at an early age -- I'm calling CPS."